


if all the stars in the sky are empty

by aglowSycophant



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Chatlogs, Heavy Angst, No Character Death, POV Second Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shooting, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, i dont really know why i wrote this. sorry, its. its heavy, or. well its related, pearl blames herself for a lot of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-07 17:01:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21220538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aglowSycophant/pseuds/aglowSycophant
Summary: The date is May 7th, and it has consistently been one of the worst days of your life.





	if all the stars in the sky are empty

Today, 8:19 PM

**Three:**

Did we have any English hw?

**You:**

Yeah we did

**Three:**

What was it?

**You:**

Before I got my eye put out worksheet

It's easy

**Three:**

Oh.

Okay.

**You:**

Are you okay dude?

**Three:**

Why?

**You:**

The date, that’s all.

**Three:**

Oh.

Right.

The date is May 7th, and it has consistently been one of the worst days of your life.

* * *

You and Three have been friends for as long as you can remember. You met at daycare, age four, and the connection between you two was _ instant. _

Her brother - Four - was fairly popular, if such a thing was possible for a preschooler. People liked him, liked playing with him and talking to him and all of those things. For a four-year-old, he was charismatic, although a better word to describe him would be cute - the same kind of cuteness that one associates with a small animal or a tiny trinket or, in this case, a young child.

Three, on the other hand, was a bit odder, or maybe just more quiet. She took to playing with blocks when the others played hide-and-seek or a pretend game. She drew on the ground with chalk when she was outside instead of playing tag. You thought she was weird, but you also thought she looked unmistakably _ lonely, _ so you hounded and harassed your way into becoming her friend. Something you didn’t know at the time was that you were her _ only _friend. The realization came six months later when you were invited to her birthday party and you were the only one there.

“Pearl?” she asked quietly, giving your sleeve a gentle tug. “Are we friends?”

“I think so!” you answered with a toothy grin.

“Why don’t you play with any of the others?” Her grip on your sleeve tightened, her small, tiny fingers digging deeper. “You have other friends, right? Don’t you like playing with them?”

“Yeah, but I like playing with you more.” Recently, you cut ties with some of them because they said Three was weird and they didn’t want to play with you if she was there, too. You made an unspoken promise that day, even if you didn’t really know it then, one that’d shape the rest of your life - you’d stay by Three’s side throughout it all, whether they liked it or not.

And, well, if there’s one thing about you, it’s that you never go against your word.

* * *

**You:**

How are you doing btw? You don’t need me to come over, right?

**Three:**

I mean, I exist.

Eight wanted to go out today but I wasn’t feeling it.

If you want to come over, you can.

* * *

Elementary school was just that - elementary. Not much happened during it, not much at all. Your friend group didn’t grow much, if at all - at least, not people you'd really consider friends when you look back at it. But Three stayed, a constant presence in your life, and so did Four by extension. Four, even if he did come across as mean and loud at times, was nice to you, so you were nice back. You didn’t talk much, but you both had a small, unspoken bond revolving around Three. If Three was like a sister to you, then Four was like your brother.

Things got worse around middle school. Kids got meaner, school got harder. You’re sure Three would have cracked if you weren’t there, even if you punched someone in the face for putting their hands on her and got suspended for a few days. It was worth it, even when Three insisted it was fine and just a small misunderstanding - an accident.

But, if it counts, you know no one hurt her again.

You found a few more friends in middle school, and your friend group went from two (and a half, counting Four) to five. You met Callie and Marie in health class when you had to work on a project together, and Four was half a friend and so was Eight, one of Callie’s friends that started to hang around you all as time went on.

Your friend group grew, and you grew, too, mentally and emotionally but not so much physically. You came out as gay, first to Three, then to your friends, then to your parents, and while it was rocky, it still went pretty okay. When you think back to those times, you remember dark, black clothes and headphones blaring loud rock music and crooked smiles plastered onto acne-covered faces.

You remember happiness.

* * *

**You:**

You sure?

I know this day is hard for you

**Three:**

Oh, don’t give me that shit.

I know it’s hard for you, too.

I’d like to see you again.

**You:**

Is it okay if I come over now?

**Three:**

In fifteen minutes?

I’m out right now.

* * *

Freshman year of high school was interesting, a breath of, well, fresh air. New people, new places, new opportunities - you were excited for it and the thrill of it. It felt like you were something then, in a special way, not _ just _Pearl Houzuki but rather Pearl Houzuki the high school student. It’s funny, how much that meant to you then. You felt big, important, like you were finally something in the eyes of the world.

In reality, you couldn’t have been smaller.

You remember going out to walk around the busy city streets with friends, walking around alone. Though, you weren’t really alone, even when you were - before the year started, Three bought a pair of friendship necklaces and gave you one half. You wore it every day. It was pretty cheesy and dumb - your half said Weirdo #1, hers said Weirdo #2, but it only left your neck when you had to shower, and it remained tucked beneath your shirt every other time. You know Three always wore hers, too. It was stupid, it was corny, it was _ yours. _

High school, for the first two years, was fun. It was still fairly carefree, and you didn’t have the more pressing issues the older kids had, not yet. Sometimes you’d forget to do your homework and Three would laugh and let you copy hers on the bus ride to school. You thanked her each time, but you’re not sure she ever knew just how much those little things meant to you.

Your friend group grew in sophomore year when there was a quiet transfer student named Marina that was in your first period, and God, was she amazing. She was shy at first and didn’t laugh at your dumb joke that you still think is funny. You had a few dice in your pocket, and you asked her if she wanted a die. She asked, “What?” and you pulled one out. She took it and she still has it, kept in a small satchel she ties to her belt loop most days.

Towards the end of sophomore year, things were going great for all of you. It was smooth sailing, and then it happened.

* * *

**You:**

Out?

It’s late, are you okay?

**Three:**

Just walking.

I’m at Hammerhead right now.

* * *

May 7th, 2017, 2:33 PM.

You remember what you were doing when it happened. It was Sunday and you had a project due on Monday. You were watching YouTube videos while you worked, scrolling mindlessly through the home page to try and find something, when you saw a notification from your mother.

“There was a shooting at Arowana today. Are you okay?”

You told her you were fine and that you were home, but panic set in. Your friends, were they okay? You texted them the moment you could. Callie and Marie were fine, Eight was okay, Four said he was with friends but Three went to Arowana with their mom and then-

Oh, God.

Three.

You texted her once, texted her twice, all of them staying delivered. You called her after that, hung up once it went to voicemail, then called again and again and again and again and again and again and aga--

She didn’t pick up.

The next few hours are one slow, hellish blur, spent pacing anxiously and checking the news and seeing if she died, if she’s okay. God, why didn’t you go with her? Why couldn’t she have stayed home? Why did it have to happen today?

Why, why, why?

But why’s never saved anyone, why’s never made anything better, why’s simply _ were. _

And Three lived, but Three wasn’t unscathed.

She had to go through surgery - no, surgeries - and it was one after another with brief moments of coherency between, and you remember seeing Three between them. Three looked broken and beaten and scared and numb, drowsy from anesthesia.

She didn’t really look like Three, you thought. She looked like a corpse, if anything, like the breathing dead.

“Three,” you breathed one day, and you were fifteen. “Three, are you okay?”

“I’m tired, Pearl,” she murmured back, and her eye looked glassy and dull. “And I miss my cat.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, and Three smiled brokenly.

“It’s okay,” she said, and you didn’t believe it. “I’ll get through it.”

“I’m sorry,” you repeated, and you wanted to hug her.

Three smiled back, her lips rotting, and you remembered she was fifteen, too.

* * *

**Three:**

Don’t worry.

I really am just walking.

**You:**

Please talk to me if you need to.

I’m here for you.

* * *

She left a note for them all, you included - a long, five-paged thing apologizing for everything and just how _ awful _she felt about it all.

They found her body in the river. Her bones were broken, limbs bent in every way except for the way they should be, her hair damp from the saltwater.

And yet, she lived.

She didn’t talk much since May 7th, 2017. She talked even less following May 7th, 2018.

“You know,” she mumbled one day, tracing circles into your hand. “When I jumped, the last thing I thought of was you.”

You didn’t know what to say to that, so you apologized.

“Don’t be,” she told you. “Save it for someone that matters.”

_ “But you do,” _ you wanted to say, _ “God, you do - so fucking much.” _

You wanted to say it, but the words got stuck in your throat.

To this day, they remain there.

* * *

**Three:**

I know.

Thank you, Pearl.

**You:**

You ate today, right?

**Three:**

Don’t remember.

* * *

In retrospect, you should have seen it coming. How calm she was before it, how sad she’d look when she’d catch your eye, however rarely. How her room was pristine the last time you visited - Sunday, the 6th - how she asked you stay a bit longer, how hopeless she looked when you had to leave.

With her note, she left a few possessions of hers: her phone, left charging with the password removed, her journal, bookmarked and left on her desk on the latest entry, one that was two words long - “I’m sorry - and her necklace with the friendship charm on it, the words faded but still legible - “Weirdo #2.” You stopped by her house while she was still in the hospital, just to check on her mother and father and Four. To you, they were a second family, a home away from home. If it was anyone else, they wouldn’t have let them come.

But you weren’t anyone else.

You were you.

She didn’t want to see you for a while. She didn’t want to see anyone for a while.

By the time she was out of the hospital, school was almost over. By the time she was out of psychiatric care, summer vacation was halfway done.

Though, to be frank, it didn’t feel like much of a vacation.

You spent a lot of time with Marina. You grew closer, you were _ forced _closer, because it was her or you were alone, and you didn’t want to push her away and God knows you didn’t want to be alone.

You remember watching cheesy movies in Marina’s living room and braiding her hair and making shitty, shitty cookies that were burnt halfway to hell. You remember smiling and laughing, but it all felt temporary, fleeting. During those two months, you don’t think you felt happy, not once.

Even if you weren’t the one to do it, you think some part of you died in the fall when she didn’t.

You and Three didn’t talk for all of summer. You saw her for the first time in about four months on the first day of senior year, when she sat in the back of class in the far-right corner. There wasn’t anything on her desk, nor did she have her phone out.

Her gaze seemed dead and piercing, like you weren’t there at all. It followed you as you went to sit down beside her. You set your backpack on the ground gently, gentler than you ever had before in your life, all the while you bit your lip and tried searching for the right words to say.

_ “Why?” _ you could have asked, but you knew why. She wrote pages of neatly-written words explaining why. _ “Hey, um, how are you?” _ would have been too casual, and you both knew the answer - _ “Horrible.” “Are you excited for senior year? We’re, uh, almost done!” - “No.” _And well, these all hinged on the hope that Three felt well enough to talk in the first place.

You didn’t end up saying anything at all.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, breaking the silence. Her voice was a rasp and it broke. It was barely audible, and so, so small, just a withered fragment of a fragment of what once was from so many years ago. “I’m so sorry, Pearl.”

You remembered being twelve, being loud and stupid and happy. You remembered being fourteen, being big and bold like you meant something in the eyes of the world. You remembered seeing Three that day, and you remembered how she didn’t seem like that girl from way back when at all.

She seemed like a ghost.

You tried your best not to cry there in the back of your physics classroom, but your best was never good enough. You sat there and sobbed while trying to force yourself to stop, because you didn’t shed a single tear those past four months since you knew if you started you wouldn’t ever be able to stop. Three just waited and watched, ever silent. She didn’t say anything when Marina walked in. The teacher saw you crying but she didn’t interrupt you, either. Word traveled around pretty fast, after all - she knew about Three. Everyone did.

Before the bell, you left to go to the bathroom to sob in peace, and Marina followed you.

Your ghost, everlasting, did not.

* * *

**You:**

So that’s a no?

**Three:**

I guess.

**You:**

I’ll pick up something on the way, what do you want?

**Three:**

Doesn’t matter.

I’ll eat anything.

**You:**

Even Burger King? 

**Three:**

Yeah. I don’t care. 

**You:**

I’m sorry Three

**Three:**

Don’t be.

* * *

She texted you for the first time in months the following week, asking if you wanted to hang out sometime. You agreed, and you sat on her bed beside her just like old times. It barely felt like reality. You were living in a memory.

It was strange.

You talked about this and that and nothing at all, making small talk for hours. It felt forced, nothing at all like the conversations you had before. Maybe you should have expected that. You weren’t sure. Either way, you couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

Her voice wasn’t the same, either. It was raspy, unused for months, consistently broken by coughs as she’d take a swig of her water.

You didn’t apologize, didn’t mention anything that had happened over the past five months. At the end of the night, you just said your goodbyes and left, feeling so much lonelier than before.

* * *

**You:**

It’s just... I don’t really know what else to say

**Three:**

You don’t have to say anything.

Words can’t fix bullet holes.

**You:**

I... Guess they can’t, but

I don’t know

You want me to pick you up at Hammerhead?

**Three:**

Okay.

* * *

Sometimes you wonder if you could have done something to fix this. To prevent this. Something, anything - anything to spare Three the pain, to make things a little better for her.

If it was you instead, Three wouldn’t have jumped.

If you were a better friend, Three wouldn’t have jumped.

Maybe if you were with her, it’d be better. Maybe if you cared more, she never would have died. Three isn’t living. Three’s just alive. Three’s just a ghost, walking amongst the living. She doesn’t feel real. When you hug her, her body is warm but her corpse is cool. Her eyes are dead, her skin is clammy, and you think of her body, messy and mangled, and you wish you were better.

You wish, you wish, and you wish.

You think of youth and sleepovers with Three and you grip the steering wheel and wonder when you had to grow up.

Life isn’t fair, you think to yourself as you round the corner. Life isn’t fair, and the stories always lie.

* * *

**You:**

I’m here.

You pull your car over and Three’s hair is caught in the light from your headlights. It’s damaged, frayed, bleached poorly and stained a murky green. She’s sitting on the edge of the bridge, looking down into the water below - turbulent, murky, and dark. You picture her body floating in it and her limbs contorted and torn and her hair damp and drenched like the kelp in the river and the dark crimson mixing with the water, cloudy and wretched. You don’t find yourself crying, somehow. You don’t find yourself feeling anything at all.

“Three,” you call, and she shifts where she sits. “Hey.”

“Hi,” she mumbles, and her voice is raspy and hoarse like it always has been since then.

Three doesn’t stand. You sit down next to her.

“You doin’ alright?” you ask. You can’t see much in the low light, but you see the lights of the city reflecting on the water and the harsh sheen of your headlights.

“You asked that already,” she mutters, and shrugs. “I’m okay. It’s the same as every other day.”

“Oh,” you reply, and you picture Three’s face bloody and broken and bruised.

“Sorry,” she apologizes, and you blink, even if she’s not looking. “I don’t mean to keep dragging you into this shit.”

“It’s okay,” you say because it’s what you should say. “You’re my friend, you know?”

“Yeah.” Her legs poke through the gaps in the railing and they dangle limply. “I know.”

You grab her hand and she flinches but doesn’t pull it away, and she finally turns to meet your gaze.

“You wanna go get something to eat?” you ask, forcing a smile. “My treat, y’know?”

“Okay,” she agrees and stands and her eyes are glassy and dead just like they were at fifteen.

“Do you care what we get?” you ask, walking towards your vehicle.

“No,” Three responds gruffly and she gets in. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

“I’m getting Arby’s, then,” you state.

The radio blares sensationalized static, and your ghost, neverlasting, says nothing.


End file.
